


Sorry that was really dark

by Neutralfan



Series: A Tower of Fun! [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Five Nights at Freddy's, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: AU, Animatronics, Attempted Kidnapping, Balloon Boy - Freeform, Bonnie - Freeform, Chica - Freeform, F/M, Foxy - Freeform, Freddy - Freeform, Halloween, Kidnapping, Pietro is safe, Plot Twists, Revenge, Robots, Very AU, foxy the pirate - Freeform, home made, no puppet, not really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5334116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neutralfan/pseuds/Neutralfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Tony,” she interrupted, “What possible use could you have for not one but two replicas of those video game animatronics?” </p><p>“Oh there’s going to be more than two, I’ve got plans to replicate them all. As for what use I have for them that’s simple Pep. revenge I’m going to get my revenge on the others for setting me up for the second biggest scare of my life, and in order to do that I have to bring the animatronics to life.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> As Promised Tony's revenge.

Pepper walked into Tony’s basement lab holding her Stark tablet. She had things for Tony to sign and since he wasn’t in his normal lab she’d come down here. This lab had the basic setup of all the other R&D labs on the above floors, but it required a special password and an override code that only Pepper and Tony had access to. This was where the top secret things got made, and scraped if they didn’t run to par.

Pepper had paused in order to read the final line of the document that she needed Tony to sign when she heard a dull ‘Thud, whir, thud’ sound just off to her left. She looked up to see a tall robotic figure in the shape of a fearsome looking rabbit. Pepper screamed; “ **ANTHONY EDWARD STARK!** ”

“Pepper, Pepper it’s ok don’t freak out! It’s just a toy.”

Pepper levels a disbelieving look at the inventor, “Just a toy! Tony this is a life sized replica of that thing from that game!”

Tony grinned “I know it took a lot of number crunching but I finally got them up to par.”

“T-them you mean to tell me-” Pepper stopped mid sentence as a second robot lumbered up to where they stood this one looking like a bear with a top hat on. Pepper stood in a shocked silence for the space of several seconds.

“What do you think Pep? I worked really hard on them and-”

“Tony,” she interrupted, “What possible use could you have for not one but two replicas of those video game animatronics?”

“Oh there’s going to be more than two, I’ve got plans to replicate them all. As for what use I have for them that’s simple Pep. revenge I’m going to get my revenge on the others for setting me up for the second biggest scare of my life, and in order to do that I have to bring the animatronics to life.”

Pepper could not believe what she was hearing, sure Tony had been upset over what had happened but it didn’t warrant building a whole fleet of animatronic robots.

“Tony you’ve done extreme things in the past but this takes the cake. You can’t be serious about this! Did you learn nothing from the Ultron project?”

“Come on Pep these aren’t going to launch an entire city into the sky, they won’t have that capability. The AI is too simplistic, they can only get commands directly from me and they have to be typed into the data stream that they are all connected to. Nothing can go wrong.”

 


	2. Secretes

**One month later**

Happy Hogan was humming to himself as he drove down a bumpy barely-there country road. Earlier that day Pepper had asked him to drive her to a last minute meeting stating that it was outside the city and that it was very important. So naturally Happy complied. What seemed odd was that she requested that they take the old Cadillac that had been owned by the previous Mr. Stark that was only driven twice a year for servicing. Then there was the lack of address. Ms Potts had only told him to get on the interstate and drive towards Albany and she’d tell him which exit to get off on.

While Happy didn’t mind driving the classic car it didn’t have a GPS with Jarvis incorporated into it so he would be flying blind so to speak. Pepper didn’t seem to mind and after an hour on the interstate she had Happy getting off on an exit for a small town with a rest stop and diner. She directed him past this town and many others for another hour until a privet drive came into view.

“Turn here Happy and follow this road until it stops.”

“Will do Ms Potts,” He said.

He was humming to keep himself from asking any questions as he had at the beginning of their trip; Pepper had shut down every one of his questions with a polite non answer. Happy narrowly avoided a large pot hole in the road as he rounded into a clearing. The Clearing held a small modern cabin with a black SUV parked out front. At the sight of the SUV Happy’s mind switched into body guard mode.

“Ms Potts, if you don’t mind my asking, who are you meeting here?”   
  
Pepper was checking her makeup, replied off handedly “Oh just an old friend Happy. I didn’t want Tony snooping on us and so I arranged for them to meet me here.”

Happy perked up at this. “Ah I see, would you like me to accompany you into your meeting? You know just to scope the place out, make sure it’s secure.”

Pepper chuckled, “Thank you for the offer Happy but that’s not necessary. We’ll be fine. But I do have one favor to ask you; would you mind staying out here in the car? My friend has a condition and uh, doesn’t like meeting strange or new people unexpectedly –they have panic attacks if they do- it’s nothing against you personally you see.”

“Oh, of course Ms Potts I wouldn’t want to upset your friend.”

Pepper smiled, “Thank you Happy I shouldn’t be too long. I’ll see you in a bit.”

She climbed out of the car and approached the cabin. As she got closer to the cabin a man exited the cabin and met her on the steps reaching out to hug her before they went inside. Happy hadn’t been able to get a good look at the man’s face because of the way the parking was set up which was parallel to the house and several feet off of its left side where the road had become a gravel drive.

Happy pulled out his Ipad that he took with him when he drove Pepper to meetings; he was going to watch his favorite show ‘Downton Abbey’.    
He’d managed to get through one episode before he noted that Pepper hadn’t emerged from the cabin or texted to let him know that she was going to be coming out soon. He uneasily started a second episode after scanning the area seeing nothing more suspicious than a few birds giving him the eye. He finished that episode with his uneasiness increasing with every passing minute, Pepper had, had longer meetings than this before- the record was 5 episodes of ‘Downton Abbey’, and that included a Christmas special- but she usually let him know if it was going to run long.

Happy dug out his cell phone thinking he’d missed a text explaining her absence but there was no text. Happy was about to get out of the car when he had a thought, what if Pepper Pots, CEO of Stark Industries was having an affair and her ‘old friend’ was really her lover? Happy sat there pondering this thought; it certainly would explain why she really didn’t want Tony to know where she was. He was in the process of opening the car door when Pepper exited the cabin; her appearance only furthered Happy’s suspicions as she was slightly disheveled which she tended to become that way after long intense meetings but Happy disregarded this rational thought in favor of his first theory. 

Pepper walked over to his door and motioned for him to open it; “Happy I’d like you to come in and meet my friend as it looks like we may be here for a while.”When Happy hesitated she added, “They have snicker doodles.”

Happy could never resist Snicker doodles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!


	3. Pre-Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is not beta'd all mistakes are my own. Enjoy!

**One week later**

 

Everything was quiet in the tower this evening no call outs, no scandals (Tony) to deal with, and no social functions to attend it was the perfect autumn evening.

Maria Hill sat content on the deck leaning up against Bruce; the two had began a tenuous romantic relationship before the Ultron incident and by the time Steve had found the “Five Nights at Freddy’s” games they had somewhat ironed out most of the kinks in the relationship to stabilize it. 

As it was hard for the two of them to find quite time alone to just be with each other they were taking full advantage of the evening before them with hot apple cider, a warm blanket, a book for her and a science journal for Bruce. The enjoyment of their solitude was broken however by Maria’s phone. She growled as she tried to disentangle herself to get her phone out of her pocket.

“This is Hill.” She answered.

“This is the weekend.” 

Maria closed her eyes, knowing full well what the male voice on the other end of the line meant.

“All right, if you insist.”

“I do.” And with that the call ended.

Maria placed her phone on the table that held the mugs of cider and proceeded to curl back up against Bruce.

“Is everything ok Maria?” Bruce asked concerned.

She smiled, “It was just a wrong number.”

Bruce hummed in a non committal way and slowly returned to his journal.

They had agreed not to lie to each other about important things; Maria just hoped that Bruce would forgive her when everything hit the fan.

>>>>>>

**Friday Night**

 

Everyone was prepping for Saturday night which was Halloween. While the tower itself had been decked out for many weeks the avengers themselves had not been.

Tony was having a small costume party for the group ‘Just us, just the team’ tony had said when he concocted the idea.

Everyone but Pepper had latched onto the idea with full force; Clint had even gone so far as to arrange for his family to attend.

There was just one rule: Unless you were under 18 no dressing up like one of the other avengers, including yourself.

Each team member was hard at work on their various costumes each wanting to outdo the other.

Tony was ‘helping’ Pepper with her costume when Jarvis spoke “Sir, I am detection a disturbance in one of the vents in the east wing of floor 42.”

Pepper shot Tony a concerned look.

“It’s ok J; it’s probably one of our surprise guests. I have them on settings so they can practice with their routs through the vents.”

Pepper stared at the man “Tony!” she hissed, “is this what the HR department was complaining about for the past month?”  
Tony grinned, “I sent them all an apology and a gift basket to make up for the inconvenience.”

Pepper rolled her eyes but before she could scold him further Jarvis cut in again.

“Shall I send it back to its proper holding area?”

“Might as well J.”

“Sir, Mr. Barton is requesting entrance.” 

“Oh send him in then.”

“Tony! I don’t want anyone to see my costume yet!” Pepper hissed at him again she escaped to the bathroom. Tony had an odd feeling that he was probably going to end up sleeping on the couch tonight.

Clint came into the room and sat down on the couch.

“What’s up Birdie? Help yourself to a seat.”

“Thanks Stark I will.” Clint said without remorse.

“My family won’t be able to make it for tomorrow night they’ve all got the flue.”

“Aw that stinks. But you’ll still be there right?”

“Yep, Lara wouldn’t let me miss it, something about team bonding. Not to mention that I wouldn’t want to miss showing off my costume.”

Tony laughed as Clint stood up to leave, “well I certainly can’t wait to be ‘amazed’ by your choice of apparel Barton.”

>>>>>>>>>>

 

Clint decided to swing by Natasha’s, via vents, before heading to the common room to meet up with Steve to help with some decorations. When he arrived at the vent that allowed easy access to her floor he saw her adjusting a fiery red cocktail dress with a slit up the left side of the skirt.

‘If I wasn’t a married man,’ Clint thought as he unscrewed the vent and swung down so that only half of his body was hanging out of the vent.

“Hey, Tasha, nice dress.”

The spy rounded on her partner, “Barton, you should know better than to sneak up on me like that; you could have been killed.”

“Yeah, yeah like you didn’t know I was there the whole time. So who are you going to the party as? Jessica Rabbit?”

Natasha rolled her eyes and lifted her chin, “No I’m going as Miss Scarlet, from the ‘Clue’ game and that movie starring Tim Curry.”

“Neat, I would have thought that Wanda would have chosen Miss Scarlet seeing as she’s the ‘Scarlet Witch’ and all.”

Natasha gave him a skeptical look, “Do you really think she would?”  
  
“Dunno, I only know that she was playing the game with Darcy, Jane, Bruce and Cap the other day.”

Natasha winced, “Barton I need to know what she’s going as.”

Clint smiled, “Your wish is my command.” Clint disappeared into the vents to make his way to Wanda and Pietro’s rooms.

>>>>>>

 

Crawling past a tight corner Clint noticed a few scratches on the wall of the vent leading up to Wanda and Pietro’s rooms. ‘That’s odd; probably from one of Starks cleaning bots that couldn’t make it around the corner.’

He sidled up to the vent that looked into the twins’ floor he could see that Pietro was sitting on the couch with a book in hand shifting restlessly and tapping his fingers. Clint then had to stifle a laugh; Pietro was dressed as ‘Waldo’.

“Wanda, are you coming out soon?”

“Just one second Pietro.”

When Wanda emerged from her room she was in a purple Victorian dress with her hair piled high atop her head. ‘Wow’, Clint thought.

“Wanda you’re the best Missy cosplay I’ve ever seen!”

“Thank you Pietro, you think it is correct then?” She asked her brother.

“Yes, the hair is different but not noticeable; the rest is perfection!”

Wanda Maxamoff, the Scarlet Witch, actually blushed at her brothers words reminding Clint just how young she was, he smiled hoping that his kids would share a bond with each other similar to the Maxamoff twins. 

Clint decided to move on and maybe check on the others costumes too; just in case.

>>>>>>>

 

Clint slid up to the vent opening into Sam and Rhody’s room. The two solders weren’t there often enough to warrant their own floors- what with Rhody still working for the Air Force and Sam working his missing persons case- so they had insisted on sharing one with each other. At present Rhody was trying on a Jedi costume and Sam was seated in the corner of the room laughing at the other man.

“Why did you wait until the last possible moment to try on your costume Rhody?”

“Because,” grunt, “the last time Tony found out I was going as a Jedi he managed to get a Princess Leia, and he went as Lord Sith and insisted we have a fight to the death, while drunk. Let’s just say it didn’t end well.”

“Ah that makes sense.”

Rhody managed to finish getting into the costume in one piece.

“So what are you going as Sam? I could always use an extra Jedi.”

Sam laughed, “No thanks, I’ve got my costume all laid out; I’m going as a WWII radio man from the T.V. show ‘Hogan’s Heroes’.”

Clint moved so fast he didn’t even notice that he’d moved until he couldn’t hear any voices; he’d seen every episode of ‘Hogan’s Heroes’ while in traction for a month. Coulson had made extra time in his schedule that he didn’t necessarily have to bring him a new D.V.D in the series and would marathon watch it with him.

Since the elder man’s death Clint couldn’t even look at the box set without having a major attack. But he wasn’t having one now he was just moving though the vents with no clear destination in mind and continued to do so until he reached a new vent opening.

This one looked out into Darcy’s apt. He could hear her talking animatedly about something terribly exciting; something about cybermites? Clint looked through the vent and paid better attention.

“Jane you could go as Rose, your hair is the almost perfect color! I’m already going as Oswin Oswald! See I’ve got my red dress and soufflé whisk all ready to go!”

‘Good grief,’ Clint thought, ‘does everyone have Doctor Who fever in this tower?” 

Jane didn’t get a chance to reply before Thor emerged from a room just out of Clint’s vision; but whatever he was wearing it sent both girls into gales of laughter.

“Behold, I come dressed as one of Midgards finest fouls.” He announced.

“Looking good big guy,” Darcy finally said after she had calmed down enough.

>>>>>>>

 

On his way back to Natasha’s room he spied Maria’s vent and decided to look in on her, she was sitting on her couch with a book, cup of tea and one Bruce Banner.

“Maria,” Bruce started, “Are you sure that our costumes will be ok? I mean what if Tony gets it into his head to weaponize my chimney sweep? And before you say that he can’t I’ve seen the man make a sentient toaster in 5 minutes flat.”

Clint arched his eyebrow at this, he hadn’t heard that one.

Maria snorted, “That was before we had to destroy it. If he makes one move towards your chimney sweep or my umbrella we strike him with aforementioned objects. Or yell for Pepper, after the toaster incident she isn’t letting him make any more sentient objects any time soon.”

Bruce hummed contently and settled on the couch next Maria with his own cup of tea.

“Oh and Barton, you breath one word of this conversation and I’ll put you in traction for a year.”

Clint made a very manly and hasty retreat to Natasha’s room at least there he knew that he’d be safe.

>>>>>>>>

 

Natasha had changed into her pajamas by the time Clint got back from his errand and was relaxing with Netflix. She looked up with a questioning brow, “Well?”

“Wanda isn’t Miss Scarlet.”

This caused Natasha to smile and pat the seat next to her, “Come watch with me. It’s the last season of Doctor Who and he’s about to meet Missy for the first time.”

Clint gladly accepts the invitation, decidedly not mentioning that Pietro was right when he saw the Missy character; Wanda was a dead ringer for the character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The plot thickens? Tell me what you think Thor is going as. If you guess right I'll give you a virtual high five.  
> Also tell me what you think so far, seeing your comments lights up my day!


	4. Party catastrophe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers Halloween Party gets underway, but goes a little side ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to be clear on everyone's costumes:  
> Tony: RDJ's Sherlock Holmes  
> Pepper is Nancy Drew  
> Darcy is Oswin Oswald  
> Jane is Padmé Amidala  
> Natasha is Miss Scarlet  
> Maria and Bruce are Mary Poppins and Bert respectively.  
> Clint is wearing his "old" circus outfit  
> Wanda is Missy from doctor who  
> Pietro is Waldo  
> Rhody is a Jedi  
> Sam is Sgt. Kinchloe from Hogan's Heroes  
> Steve is a night guard  
> and Thor is a chicken

**Saturday**

The lounge was all set up and decorated for the Halloween party; orange and black colored lights were strung about the room like Christmas lights, garlands of pumpkins, bats, ghosts and ghouls hung everywhere, and the table was set with charming Halloween themed plates, cups, and was draped in a black table cloth.

Pepper and Tony arrived first and with a glance Tony pronounced that it was time to party.

“Whoa.” Clint stated as he entered the room, Natasha on his arm, “this is incredible.”

“Of course it is I paid for it. What are you wearing Birdbrain?”

“This is my old circus costume from before I joined S.H.I.E.L.D back then I was known as “Hawkeye the world’s greatest marksmen.”

Tony snorted, “I thought we stated that we couldn’t dress up as ourselves.”

“I checked with Cap, he said this didn’t count, I also asked Pepper if it was ok. Who I might add looks like a certain detective that my wife is a fan of.”

 

Pepper smiled graciously at the archer, “Lara likes Nancy Drew too? I’ll have to talk to her about it when she comes to visit next.”

 “Anyway,” Tony cut in, “who are you suppose to be Red, a lady of the evening?”

Natasha lifted her head haughtily an gave a small quirk of her lips before answering;

“Not quiet, I’m Miss Scarlet, Mr. Holmes.”

Tony’s life was probably saved in that moment as he caught sight of the people entering the room and doubled over in laughter.

“Good Evening fellow mortals on this night of all hallows eve!” Thor bellowed as he entered in all his glory dressed in a yellow chicken suit.

“T-Thor what are you wearing?” Pepper asked, years of practice kept her from laughing outright at his choice of attire.

“Ah I have been persuaded by the lovely Lady Darcy to dress as one of your midgardian fouls for the evening as it would bring everyone much joy to see myself dressed as such.”

“I think he makes a great chicken.” Darcy stated from her place besides Thor.

“Well- ok then Soufflé girl. Jane is Princess Leia right?”

“No.” responded Jane, “I’m her mother.”

“I honestly have no reply for that, Nancy will you show the ladies to the refreshments?” Tony asked Pepper who fondly rolled her eyes.

Sam and Rhody joined them momentarily and Tony was put out that he’d not been included in the “Star Wars” theme that Rhody had gone with.

“But we could have had the most epic battle and made a viral video!”

“No, Tony, just no besides don’t you think that one viral video every six months is more appropriate for someone of your stature?”

A red and white blur breezed past them, “Yes, you are getting a bit old for such shenanigans Mr. Stark,” taunted Pietro as he grabbed a handful of candy from a bowl on the table.

“Hey, don’t eat all of that! I won’t be held responsible if you end up on a sugar high.”

“Don’t worry Mr. Stark,” Wanda commented as she traipsed in, “Pietro has a good sense about how much candy he eats; he always has.”

Tony did a double take of the twins, “Umm Waldo and a Victorian lady?”

Various sounds of outrage met this statement as the last three party members arrived.

“Tony,” Darcy said in a petulant voice, “She’s obviously ‘Missy’ from Doctor Who. Have you watched any of season 8?”

“I am not going to dignify that with a response Miss Lewis.”

A delighted gasp, from Jane kept the two from a snarking battle the likes of which the nine realms have never seen before.

“Oh, Maria, Bruce you both look amazing! Where did you get a chimney sweep?”

 Maria, a startlingly good Mary Poppins look alike, grinned at Jane, “Someone owed me a favor.”

Tony meanwhile had been distracted by Steve’s choice of attire for the evening.

“Who are you suppose to be Spangles?”

Steve grinned, “I’m the Night Guard.”

Tony did his best to hide his glee, this couldn’t get any better.

“Oh, will we be getting any phone calls tonight?”

Steve shook his head and joined Pietro in raiding the candy dish.

>>>>>>>>>

The evening was a blast, laughter, food, fun the whole nine yards. Midnight was closing in while Thor regaled everyone with a tail from Asgard.

Steve wasn’t paying too much attention to the story though, he was more concerned about their resident’ ‘billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’, who was appearing to be taking more interested in Thor’s story than usual. But on one important note, the one that had Steve concerned was that Tony hadn’t been drinking at all. Tony had a reputation for having at least five drinks at any party he attended but not tonight. Steve wondered if it might be Pepper’s influence that was causing this new habit.

Just as Steve was getting ready to call it a night the lights flickered. They flickered so badly that the lights from the party were the only light that was provided.

“What, what just happened?”

“Stark your light guy needs to be changed.”

“A power outage in Stark tower?"

“Tony!”   
Then even the party lights went out causing confusion Steve managed to stay in his seat and tried to call order to his team. The party lights came back on and to everyone’s horror four large figures stood around the room at varying spots.   
Steve stood up to get a better look when the Toreador March started playing he looked to the main door to see a looming figure with eyes that glowed. Someone screamed, another yelled “Avengers Assemble”, Pepper though was yelling at Tony. 

“ANTHONY EDWARD STARK this has gone far enough! Turn the lights back on now!”

Tony shockingly was giddy at the whole situation, ‘maybe, he wasn’t as sober as I thought.’ Steve observed as the inventor started to howl with laugher.

“You should see your faces! Ha, ha, ha Jarvis turn the lights back on.”

The lights came on to show four,animatronics one bear in the door way, a fox in the utility closet, a rabbit like figure near the window, and a chicken behind the bar.

“Wait, what, - are those the animatronics from the ‘Five Nights at Freddy’s’ games?” Asked Rhody who to his credit had pulled out his light saber and was holding it in a defensive position.

“Yep, surprise! How does it feel to be scared out of your mind by simple kid friendly robots?”

The group stared at him in disbelief before erupting.

“How could you!”

“Really Tony you should know better than this.”

“Friend Stark this is a wonderful jest.”

“I’m not going to sleep after this.”

Everyone was so focused on Tony that they didn’t notice the animatronics quietly leaving the room; until the lights went out again.

“Tony!” Pepper yelled, “turn the lights back on now!”

“This isn’t me Pep, something must have malfunctioned. Jarvis run a diagnostic on the power supply.”

There was no reply from the AI, “Jarvis?”

“Um Tony the power is out I don’t think Jarvis is online.” Clint offered.

 “Very observant Hawkeye,” said a distorted voice spoke. “As you have guessed the AI known as Jarvis is offline. I have assumed control e of this tower and consequently all the AI’s within.”

“WHAT!”   


“Stark, what have you done?”

“TONY!”

“Now I will tell you how things are going to work. My proposition is this as I attempt to complete my takeover of the tower you all must survive until 6 am. At which point if there is even one Avenger left I will relinquish my hold and allow all of you to continue on in peace. If no Avengers are left then well, need I really say more?”

“Ok so we all go to sleep wake up and this guy’s gone. Simple.”

“Not quite Miss Lewis, notice I said that I had every AI under my control, take note of the time I set as the end game? Well the animatronics will be hunting all of you. They have already claimed their first victim. Good luck.”

The emergency lights came back on along with the party lights, the avengers stood around stunned, until Thor asked a very prudent question.

“What did the voice mean when it said that its first victim had been claimed?”

Everyone looked at him before each avenger started doing an internal head count.

“Pepper? Guys where’s Pepper?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well what do we have here? 
> 
> Let me know what you think!


	5. 2 down 11 to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The avengers search the tower to find Pepper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got caught up in finals and wasn't able to write as my brain had turned to mush. But I did manage to un-mush it and hopefully this was worth the wait? :D   
> (I also want to say that Tony talks tech here and I am not a computer science major, everything I know about tracking/tracing/servers comes from t.v. and movies. So if I get it wrong... Sorry in advance.)

“Guys Pepper’s gone! They’ve taken Pepper! What are we going to do?” Tony wailed.

“Tony, you are Iron man, pull yourself together! They couldn’t have taken her far if we go now we still have a chance of catching them.” Sam said.

Tony took a deep breath just in time to see Bruce turn from a light shade of green to his normal pallet; there was more to think about than just him.

“Ok everyone listen up,” Steve said, “we’ve got to find Pepper and this maniac, and stay alive until 6 a.m. we should start by clearing all the floors of the tower. Stark do you think you could trace where that voice was broadcasting from?”

“Yeah everything is in my lab though.”

“Stark will need to have someone go with him. This is not going to turn into some kind of horror movie.”

“Um, news flash Cap, it already has.” Barton sarcastically stated.

“I’ll go!” Darcy shouted clearing rooms with only a whisk for protection was not her idea of fun.

“I’ll go too, just so the two of you will actually get something done.” Rhody said next.

Steve nodded, “Alright, Wanda, Pietro, Sam you’re with me, Thor, Maria, Clint, and Bruce you’re with Natasha.”

Jane raised her hand “Um what about me I don’t want to clear rooms but I don’t want to be left alone either.”

Steve opened his mouth to answer when a crackling could be heard over the speakers.

“Attention Avengers, there seems to be a slight misunderstanding. You cannot leave the common room.” The distorted voice from before stated.

“Do you see the box on the bar counter? It contains a device that will blow half of New York City to Asgard, unless you reset the timer when it winds down. Good luck.”

“Well I guess that means I’m going to stay here and guard a box that holds half the cities fate in it.” Jane stated.

“No Lady Jane, I will not permit it.” Thor protested.

“He’s right Dr. Foster, you shouldn’t be by yourself. Just incases something caused you to not be able to reset the timer.” Steve quickly said.

“I’ll stay with you Dr. Foster. I’d really rather not rile up the ‘Other Guy’ any more than he already is.” Bruce said with a slanted glare towards Tony.

Jane nodded in agreement as did Thor.

“Alright it’s settled then everyone who is clearing rooms follows me to the floor below us.”

With that everyone set out to their designated tasks.

. . . . . . .

12:40 A.M.

Clearing rooms was much easier than Steve had though, there was no one hiding on the floors below the common room and they had now reached the employee floors, the only thing that kept them on edge were the random sounds that played over the speakers; just like in the game. It was too weird even for the more seasoned individuals of the team like Natasha and Clint.

 They reached floor 42 and streamed out of the elevator dispersing into their assigned groups. Steve and his team cleared the floors in what he considered record time. Steve was starting to think that the mysterious voice was bluffing about the animatronics and his trying to take over the tower when he heard a loud bang from the ceiling followed by a scream from across the other side of the building a few seconds later.

“Clint?” Steve yelled as he raced over to towards the source of the scream, the others following his path. He reached the area where Natasha and her team were to find them all standing under a vent trying to hoist Natasha up into the vent as the screaming and yelling from Clint continued.

Steve paying no mind to the rescue effort already going on launched himself up to the vent opening.

“Rogers what are you doing? You aren’t going to fit!” someone yelled as he managed to pull half of his body into the vent, ignoring the protests from below him.

“Clint!” Steve yelled as he tried to see inside the dark vent.

“Cap, it’s got me! Grab my hand and pull!” Clint yelled back, Steve could just barely make out a shape moving in front of him. He attempted to pull himself further into the vent so he could attempt to reach Clint’s hand.

“NO!” Clint yelled, and a psychotic childish laugh echoed through the vent as loud banging and a sliding sound followed a “Hi”. Clint started howling as he tried to find purchase against the animatronics’ pull as Steve tried to grab him, but it was no use, he was pulled out of Steve’s reach and down the vent.

“Clint!” Steve yelled trying to push himself into the vent but failing as he felt a tug on his legs followed by a firm yank, extracting him from the shaft, causing him to land on his back just barely avoiding hitting his head in the process.

“Rogers what were you thinking?” Maria yelled at him.

“I was only trying to help.”

“By playing hero when Natasha had the situation in hand.” Wanda retorted.

“Honestly,” Natasha cut in, “I don’t know if it would have made a difference no matter who’d gone up there. For all we know there was another one waiting for a second person, Steve was just too big to be pulled up and through the vents.” Natasha then made eye contact with each avenger there before continuing, “Clint has been in worse spots than this, providing they don’t kill him on the spot, he is our best way of finding Pepper and messing up this guy’s plan.”

“Well you’re not wrong there Nat, Clint does have the knack for getting himself in and out of tight spots.” Maria acknowledged.

Steve sighed he knew that he’d screwed up royally. “We need to keep clearing floors; we still don’t know where the animatronics are coming from or where they are hiding when they disappear.” Nods from the others signaled agreement as they headed towards the elevator again.

. . . . . . . .

Tony sat staring at his monitors tracking the numbers and lines of code trying to track this guy’s signal; if only he’d broadcast again then they could get a lock on the live signal and everything would be easier.

“You got anything on your end Stark.” Darcy called from her position on the couch, where she was typing rapidly on the laptop Tony had assigned to her.

“No, this guy is good, it’s like he’s constantly rewriting his code. He’s almost as good as me with the exception that if he hadn’t disabled Jarvis I’d have found him by now. Trying to keep up with an encrypted system that is constantly moving and rewriting itself by ‘hand’ so to speak isn’t as easy as the movies make it out to be.”

Tony put his head in his hands, he was tired, and he knew that this was his fault; by letting the animatronics ‘practice’ crawling through the vents he had lowered the tower’s defenses which had supposedly allowed the perpetrator to gain access to them. But how had they done it?

“You know what gets me,” Rhody said from his place next to Darcy, “how did he get control of the animatronics? They don’t appear to have the most advanced tech, no offence Tone, so he can’t be controlling them from too far away, can he?”

Tony sat up and cocked his head to the side considering that thought, he’d told Pepper that very thing, that the AI’s were too simplistic for the animatronics to develop a sense of self (like Ultron, or the toaster) and that the only way to impute a command for them to follow had to be done from his computer in his secret workshop.

“Guys I think I smell a rat.” Tony stated standing, picking up his chair in the process and bringing it to sit in front of them.  “Rhody is right about the animatronics; their AI’s are too simplistic, they have to have a set of commands imputed into them every time you want them to do something new.  Only one computer in this entire tower can do that and only two people know where it is, me and Pepper, three if you count Jarvis.”

“So you’re saying what exactly?” Rhody asked suspiciously.

“What if they kidnapped Pepper because even though they somehow managed to hack into the AI’s they realized that they couldn’t give them any kind of specific commands, so who would be the most likely person to know where I would keep such a computer who might also tell them how to use it? Pepper, she’s no pushover but hit the right buttons and she might cave.”

Rhody and Darcy nodded in agreement when a loud bang came from the emergency stair doors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So let me know what you think is going on, or what you thought of the chapter over all. Comments make my day and encourage me to write.   
> Side note, I am coming to the part where I don't have things as hammered out as I'd like so updates may take a bit longer as I work that out.   
> Thanks for reading!


	6. *&%$ Foxy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love the bots, and Pietro.  
> (More tech stuff that maybe inaccurate.)

1:00 A.M.

A crackling sounded throughout the building catching everyone’s attention; “Well done Avengers you have made through your first hour and only lost one of your companions. But you still have five more hours to go; so let’s make this more interesting.” As he said this the power went out. “Good luck!”

. . . . . . . . . .

The entire tower was plunged into darkness. Tony swore as he tripped over a random piece of equipment or junk, as he tried to get to the emergency fuse box to reset the backup generators that provided power the all the labs in the tower.

“What? Dum-E stay out of the way!”

 A click and squeaking sound could be heard from the emergency door, which happened to be feet away from the fuse box that Tony was headed for.  Tony tripped again slamming himself into the wall next to the fuse box, he fumbled with the door, ‘and why did I install an old mettle type fuse box?’ he chastises himself, before getting it open. Behind him there was a forceful hiss and Dum-E’s frantic beeping followed by a crash.

“Tony, are you ok?” Darcy yelled, followed closely by Rhody, “What was that?”

Tony found the switches, “I seriously need to upgrade this fuse box,” he mumbled as he flipped the switches. Once again the room was illuminated with light. Tony sighed with relief before he turned around to investigate why Dum-E was still beeping like a panicked Prius; he instantly wished he hadn’t.

There on the floor was Dum-E trapped under a heap of Foxy, across the room Darcy and Rhody let out a string of explicits at the sight; while Tony was doing his level best to remember how to breathe. ‘Breathing,’ he thought to himself, ‘that’s something normal people who don’t build animatronics do right?’ He then noted the fire extinguisher next to the heap and made the connection that Dum-E must have frozen the animatronics mechanical functions by using the fire extinguisher on it.

“So,” he said to the robot, “remember what I said about donating you? Yeah, not gonna happen buddy.”

Tony walked over the heap and reached over to free his beloved bot. “There you go, a new coat of paint and you’ll be good as new. U Butterfingers, one of you bring me a screwdriver.” The two bots scurry off to do his bidding as Rhody looks at the inventor with concern.

“Tony, what are you doing?”

Tony looked up from where he’d been pulling away the fabric covering the animatronics, “I am going to remove the ‘heart’ of this thing so that it can’t re-activate. More importantly, however, the hardware inside might be able to help us see how he hacked into the AI’s of the animatronics.”

Rhody looked mildly impressed as U brought Tony the screwdriver that he wanted.

“Hey boys, I just found something interesting.” Darcy called from across the room.

“And what would that be Miss Lewis.” Tony asked distractedly.

“Happy’s employee ID scanned in two hours ago. Didn’t he say he had a date tonight and wouldn’t be able to attend the party?”

The two men looked at each other and then back at her, even in the dim lighting they could see her roll her eyes in a way that would shame the most teen’s, “Come on, it’s not rocket science, this can’t be a coincidence. Even if he was only going to put in some overtime by watching the security cameras, he didn’t even stop in to say ‘hi’, that is weird for him.”

Tony stared at her, she was right that was too much of a coincidence. But he’d known Happy for years and the man was nothing but loyal, what had changed?

 Tony was about to open his mouth and voice this when another loud bang sounded on the door, causing everyone and bot to jump.

. . . . . . . . .

Bruce was standing near the large windows of the tower looking out at the city, the room was dark but not too dark as the lights from the city were able to illuminate the room by casting enough light too see around the room.

“Jane,” he asked after checking his phone, “do you have a signal on your phone?”

The scientist looked up from her own phone, and shook her head, “No, I’ve been trying to get one since this whole debacle began. Whoever is doing this must be jamming the signal and creating a dead zone around the tower so we can’t call for help.”

Bruce nodded in agreement, though the hole in that plan would be if Tony, Sam, Thor, or even Wanda flew out of the tower to get help or just to evacuate everyone from the tower. But seeing as the voice had prepared for them wanting to find him, Bruce surmised that the voice would probably have a nasty back up plan if one of them did that.

“Bruce I’ve been thinking, what if we could un-jam the phone signal?”

“We could call the others, or the Fantastic Four, the bomb disposal unit.” Bruce answered, though he didn’t like admitting that there was something that the Avengers team couldn’t handle on their own; namely stopping the takeover of their own tower.

“Well, I’ve got a machine down in my lab that could un-jam the signal.” She said excitedly, “We could repurpose it and get the word out about the bomb at least. Maybe even get the city evacuated just in case.”

“Dr. Foster, you are a genius!”

Jane smiled and stood in a hurry, “come on we can take the stairs to my lab.”

“Wait the box, we can’t just leave it here the bomb will go off.” Bruce stated feeling like a heel for stating the obvious.

“We can take it with us! There’s nothing connecting it to anything. Come on you carry it and we’ll get the machine.”

Bruce picked up the box and checked the timer on it to be sure that they had enough time to get down to the lab before they had to reset it, and quickly followed Jane to the emergency stairs.

. . . . . . . .

As the room was plunged into darkness no one really panicked as they all, except Thor, pulled out their phones and turned on the flashlight feature.

“When I get my hands on Stark he’s going to regret being born.” Sam muttered.

“We can’t blame this all on Tony, he just happened to provide the monsters.” Hill defended.

“Still, it was irresponsible of him, especially after what happened with Ultron,” Pietro snarked .

Steve sighed, “We’re losing the point here guys, yeah Tony made a bad decision, haven’t we all at one point or another? He only wanted to pull a prank, how was he to know that someone was going to turn it into an all out horror movie?

“We need to keep looking for this guy, and Pepper and Clint. Does anyone have any ideas how to continue doing that?”

The group was silent for a moment before Thor spoke up, “It would seem to me that there are these things that friend Tony called ‘emergency stairs’ on every floor of the tower. Mayhap, it would behoove us to use them as we continue our search for the others.”

“Good idea Thor, any other good ideas?”

“Yes,” Natasha spoke up, “It would seem that Stark has made no head way with finding this person, not to mention the power just went out and the computers are down, he might need help. I think it would be a good idea if I went to check on them at least if not provide some help.”

“Alright, but I want Wanda to go with you for protection. The rest of you follow me to the next floor.”

The group split up on the stairs, Natasha and Wanda heading up while Steve and the others headed down.

“Ok spread out everyone,” Steve said as their group was smaller now and they needed to clear the floor quickly, “I want everyone saying something, I don’t care what, every few seconds while we clear rooms so that we know where the other one is.”

With that they split up, each going in their own direction, Pietro had finished his section quickly and headed back to the stairs when he saw Maria slip into the stair well unnoticed. He decided to follow her as it wasn’t safe for them to be leaving the main group, alone. Pietro stepped into the stair well and heard footsteps above him, just as he was about to call out to Maria, something grabbed him from behind and managed to knock him unconscious.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Clint groaned as he regained consciousness, his head had hit a corner at one point when Balloon Boy pulled him to wherever he was now, he slowly opened his eyes. If his head hadn’t been pounding he would have sat bolt upright when he got a look at the room he was in; it was his. He was in his room, the only thing keeping Clint from thinking this was a bad dream was that the lights were acting weird, they were flickering and casted a weird sickly white glow.

Clint rolls himself off his bed and cautiously goes to the door where he can hear scuffling outside it. He looks around his room for any of his weapons that he kept stashed there, but came up empty. Even his gun safe had been opened and emptied out, and no one not even Natasha knew the combination to that safe.

Clint, out of desperation went into the bathroom to see if there was something he could use to improvise a weapon from; he managed to find a full can of air freshener under the sink as he heard the door to his bedroom open.

‘This’ll have to do.’ He thought as he readied himself to charge the figure that was now checking the side of the bed that Clint couldn’t see.

He had just cleared the Bathroom doorway when the figure straitened and turned around; Clint stopped dead in his tracks; ‘no it can’t be.’ He thought as the person smiled warmly at him.

“Hello Clint.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look Clint is safe and sound! Ish?  
> I hope everyone is having a nice holiday season. I do feel odd putting up a Halloween story during Christmas, but ehh it works.  
> Don't be shy I love any and all comments, let me know what you think of this chapter. :D


	7. B.B. and Chika

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally a new Chapter!!  
> Special thanks to Shadows_of_Shemai for the idea that gets played out in this chapter.

The stairway down to Jane’s lab was pitch as the two scientists clambered down the stairs doing their best not to upset the cumbersome package with only the flashlight application on Jane’s cell phone to guide them.

“One more flight and we’re there!” Bruce gasped as he barely avoided slipping on the previous step. Ahead of him Jane froze, causing him to almost drop the box, just below them they could hear a mechanical whirring sound, followed by a clank. Both scientists stayed rooted to their spots not wanting to attract the attention of whatever was below them. Bruce scarcely breathed, he was so focused on keeping the Other Guy down, and the box in his hands and not on the floor. The sounds continued it felt as if hours were passing instead of minutes, but gradually the mechanical sounds started to fade from their hearing.

“That was too close.” Jane whispered when the stairwell was completely devoid of any mechanical sound. Bruce nodded in agreement, “Let’s go before it comes back,” he suggests.

They continue much more cautiously, listening to every little creak and groan of the building, which takes twice as long as it normally would to descend the last flight of stairs before the lab. Upon reaching the platform Jane opened the access door and held it open for Bruce.

“Bruce, I just had a thought, the labs are protected by automated locks; with the power being out don’t they engage automatically?”

Bruce had to think on that, a few months after Stark tower had opened to the public someone had managed to break into the R&D department, but hadn’t been able to get away with the goods, following that incident Tony had invented and installed automatic locks that had increased security measures; such as automatically engaging the lock if the power were to be cut off.

“I’ll look at it. There may be a way to override it or something. If all else fails we could always break the glass doors open.”

Jane shook her head, “That would alert those mechanical menaces to our location. Whatever we do we have to do it quietly. How’s the box doing?”

Bruce lifted the object in question slightly, “It’s fine? Oh you mean the timer; it’s still good to go for a little bit yet. We’ll need to wind it while we’re in the lab no doubt.” 

Reaching the lab doors Bruce set the box down and moved to examine the locked doors. “It looks like Tony didn’t install the same lock on these. It appears to be one of the old ones that we could tamper with to get the door open.”

Before Jane could reply, they heard a loud bang come from the stair well followed by a feminine sounding scream.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Somewhere in the tower a phone was ringing urgently.

“Hello?”

“Are you out of your mind?” Maria whispered violently into the phone. She had, out of concern, called to see if Clint was ok; last thing Maria had known violently kidnapping the archer wasn’t part of the plan. “This is pretty elaborate even for you.” She hissed.

“I know. Don’t worry about Clint he’s got a mild concussion from not remembering how to protect his head correctly.”

“You didn’t really rig that box to explode did you?”

“Good by Maria.”

The line went dead causing Maria to mime throwing her phone at the wall not wanting to risk the sound attracting any unwanted attention. Having already broken off from the group she knew that she would need to make it seem as if she’d been captured too. Feeling out for the railing that lined the stairway Maria ascended the stairs counting the landings as she went, so that she could stay a few flights below Romanoff and Wanda; though she knew that might not be possible with one trained to look for anomalies and the other being an anomaly.

She had herself somewhere between the various labs and R&D floors when she heard something about two flights above her. Maria stilled, uncertain if what was above her was human or animatronic, not wanting to tangle with either she held her position.

Unbeknownst to her an animatronic was creeping up behind her, only alerting her to its presents when it had gotten directly behind her. “HI!”

Maria screamed out of surprise as something above her hit the floor with a bang. Balloon Boy only laughed at the fear that he’d managed to strike into the normally unflappable agent.

. . . . . . . .

Steve was singing an old Irish folk song that his mother had taught him when he was little as he cleared rooms, he could easily make out Thor’s Asgaurdian ravings, Sam’s rendition of ‘Call me Maybe’ was also clear enough that Steve decided that Sam had a beautiful voice, Pietro was saying things that he couldn’t understand- though whether it was from the speed of which it was being spoken or from it being spoken in a language he couldn’t understand he didn’t know- Maria though was strangely silent.

Steve continued to sweep his assigned rooms backwards as he went back to the stairwell door, becoming increasingly uneasy as he did. He’d been unable to hear Maria and Pietro had gone silent. Waiting by the doors was Sam he was in a defensive position though putting Steve on high alert as he joined him.

“What’s your status?”

“I just saw the chicken thing poke its head out of the area that Maria was supposed to be clearing.”

Steve looked over Sam’s shoulder to see nothing but blackness. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah I’m sure cap. You might be getting tired but I’ve had enough caffeine to keep me up until dinner tomorrow night.”

Steve sighed and turned to look behind himself when he saw a chicken out of the corner of his eye. Raising his arm with the shield on it he launched it before he pulled himself out of a crouching position to attack the animatronic. Sam close on his heals shot a blast at the chicken’s head causing it to fall to the floor with a very un-mechanical thud.

Steve looked over at Sam, “Where did you get that blaster from?”

“Stark. I always keep one on me in case of someone attacking me when I’m around you guys. It has obviously come in handy.”

Steve chuckled as he moved to examine the animatronic, as he knelt down by the head he noticed a critical piece of information.

“Sam this isn’t an animatronic, we just knocked Thor unconscious.”

“For the love of Pete,” Sam sighed exasperatedly, “is he ok?”

Steve shrugged, “I think so, but what do I know about Asgaurdian health. We need to get him out of here, maybe the common room with Jane and Bruce. At least there we can regroup and figure out our next step.”  
“Uhh, Steve, I don’t know if you noticed but, we seem to be the only ones on this floor.”

“Great. Let’s just hope that they decided to go back up to the common room. Help me with Thor, he weighs a ton or better.”

 Sam snorted, “Yeah, remind me not to go out drinking with you guys anytime soon.”

. . . . . . . . . .

No one in the lab dared move as they waited for the other shoe to drop; they already had Foxy dismembered, so who was banging on the door?

The bang sounded again, “Stark if you don’t open this door right now I swear I will make your last moments on this Earth very painful!”, shouted the person on the other side of the door.

“It’s Natasha! Quick Tony, open the door!” Rhody exclaimed.

“I’m going I’m going, Rhodes, keep your shirt on. Keep yours on too Romanoff, or don’t if that’s what you want.” Tony said as he opened the door to the lab, allowing the angry Russian entrance.

“We just heard a scream from below us and thought it would be a good idea to get inside the lab.” Wanda explained as she entered, eyeing the mess of Foxy’s remains on the floor.

 “Steve sent us to check on you, to see if you’d made any progress or if you needed any help. I happen to be very good with computers.” Natasha stated ignoring Tony’s comments.

Tony spread his arms wide, “Help yourself Romanoff, I’ve been working every angle that I can but without Jarvis it’s all 100 times slower. If you can think of something knock yourself out. I am going to take this hard drive and see what I can get off it.”

Natasha pulled out a stool by a computer station and started to pull up some programs that she knew Tony had on all of his computers namely, ‘power grid map’, ‘recorded P.A. system archives’, and a voice analyzer.

Wanda had gone and sat down next to Darcy while Rhody went to work on moving the remains of Foxy off to the side where no one would get hurt on them.

Several minutes passed like this before a crackling sound came over the P.A. system again.

“2 o’clock and all is somewhat well for the Avengers in Avengers tower.” The voice rang out. “By now you have discovered that some of your team mates have gone missing. There are now 9 of you left, do not think that by congregating together that you will be able to escape what is coming. May the odds be with you.”

Tony looked up from his computer, “Did he just combine two quotes?”

“Badly,” Darcy replied with a wince, “Hey you know how our phone signals have been blocked? I think I found a way to get passed it, I can log into skype, and if it’s not blocked I call anyone that I want.”

“That’s great Darcy, now if only the police department had a skype account,” Tony snarked from across the room.

“I’m not going to skype them; I’m going to skype Happy. I’m going to ask him to call the police to help us out of this mess.”

“That’s… actually not a bad idea.” Tony said sullenly as he got up. “Let’s give the Hapster a call; and while we are at it we can ask him what he’s doing here so late on a night that he had off from security duty.”

“It’s worth a shot.” Rhody agreed.

Darcy clicked on Happy’s skype name and placed the call, it rang a few seconds before Happy’s face appeared on the screen.

“Oh, um, hi Darcy, what are you doing up so late?” Happy said around a mouth full of food.

“Hey Happy, I’m currently trapped in the tower by some psycho who’s trying to eliminate all the Avengers; are those snicker doodles?”

Happy’s eyes had gone wide, as he slid the plate of cookies out of view. “Um yes, that’s terrible though Darc. Why are you calling me?”

“We need you to call the police, the psycho has also hidden a bomb in the tower and we are trying to keep it from exploding but they should evacuate the blocks closest to the tower.”

“Oh I gotcha; Yeah I’ll do that right away.”

“Happy one more thing, why are you currently in the tower? You said you were going on a date tonight.” Darcy asked accusatorily.

“Oh I got stood up I waited for two hours before I came back to work. I’ll call the police now so I’ll sign off and call you back when I’m finished.”

Tony decided to butt in at this point, “Good to know big guy, and hey there are other fish in the sea don’t worry.”

Happy made a face before signing off.

“Well that’s been taken care of, one less thing to worry about.” Rhody said.

‘Yeah,’ thought Natasha as she quickly entered in a few lines of code allowing the voice analyzer to run as she analyzed the power layout of the tower. ‘He’s got an answer for everything and it all fits together like a nicely wrapped box of snicker doodles.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow so RL hit hard at the beginning of the new year and for the last month making it hard to sit down and write. So thank you for being patient for this chapter!


	8. It's Real!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is 100% done with everyone's pettiness. Maria gets a horrifying revelation.

Getting back to the common room was proving harder than Steve had originally thought; he’d forgotten how hard it could be to haul a person’s dead weight up a few flights of stairs could be, super solder serum or not Thor was heavy, add that to the 44 flights of stairs between the last office floor they’d been on, even with Sam’s help, made this no easy task. Steve was starting to have flashbacks to hauling Bucky’s drunken dead weight up to their shared apartment in his pre-serum asthmatic body.

They paused on the landing inhaling deeply trying to catch their breath. Steve looked upwards trying, and failing, to make out any source of light above them. They had maybe ten more flights before the hit the common room floor, as it was they were two below Tony’s lab, Steve was seriously debating just diverting there and leaving Thor with them before going to check on Bruce and Jane.

“How you doing, Sam?” Steve asked.

“I’m hanging in there,” Sam replied panting, “I never would have guessed how heavy this guy was before though. He needs to lay off the pop tarts.”

Steve chuckled ruefully, “I never would have guessed that either.”  

A sound just out of his hearing range caused Steve to look over his shoulder but all he could see was darkness.

“Did you hear something?”

“Other than the blood rushing in my ears? I don’t think so, but I keep thinking I’ve been hearing something following us ever since we started up the stairs.”

Steve sighed, “I think we’re a few floors below Tony’s lab. Maybe we could drop Thor off there then go check on Bruce and Jane?”

“Sounds good to me, just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

They stood there in the darkness for a while longer, panting, before heaving Thor up again and starting up the next flight of stairs. Another flight later Sam posed a question to Steve;

“Who do you think is behind this? Could it be Hydra?”

Steve thought before he answered, “This isn’t Hydra’s style.”

“Well,” Sam puffed, “that idea of dropping Thor off at Tony’s lab is looking better every minute. We’d be  faster that way.” Before Steve could reply they heard a noise from below them again.

“Sounds like a good plan Sam.” He replied as they both picked up the pace.

. . . . . .

Pietro gradually woke from his unconscious state his head pounding, not wanting to open his eyes he groaned and called for his sister.

“Wanda?”

“Nope, you’ve got two more guesses kid.”

Pietro groaned again as he forced himself to open his eyes against his blinding headache.

“Hawkeye.” He slurred

“You’d do well to never confuse me with your sister again.” The archer replied as he leaned back in his chair across from the bed that Pietro was laying on.

He grimaced, “where are we?”

“On my floor in my room, we can move around the floor, but the power is off and all the emergency exits are blocked so we might as well stay where there is light.”

Pietro shifted into a sitting position, “Do you know who is doing this?”

Clint got very quiet at that question and looked away from his fellow avenger as an uneasy silence settled between the two for several minutes before he answered.

“Yes, but I’m not sure I believe my own eyes, or ears for that matter.”

Pietro stared at the older man, he’d never, not once heard him doubt his eyes; he wasn’t called ‘Hawkeye’ just for aesthetics, his eyes were everything to him.

“Why would you doubt yourself? Your eyes are best.”

Clint smiled grimly at that, “because if I’m right then everything I’ve known as fact for the last 10 years is a lie. If I’m wrong, then we are in deeper trouble than if Hydra had rolled up into the tower with approval from the President of the United States to arrest all of us for treason.”

“So, what you are saying is, we are screwed.”

 Clint nodded, “Yep, and the worst part is we can’t do anything about it.”

Pietro didn’t much care for that attitude, he’d never been a quitter on the important things in life his father had instilled that in him and Wanda from an early age.

“There must be something we can do.” He offered.

Clint looked at him his eyes hard, “then let’s hope that your brain is as fast as your legs and figure out how to get back to the others so we can fix this mess.”

. . . . . . .

Natasha angrily slammed her headphones onto the floor as she stood up from her chair violently.

Tony looked over at the approaching red head with a smirk, “Problems Romanoff?”

Natasha bared her teeth at him, “yes Stark, I was analyzing the voice and trying to clean up the recordings when the whole thing crashed on me!”

Tony blinked, “It what? That’s not possible!”

Natasha snorted and gestured towards the computer she’d been using, “go see for yourself, it crashed and rebooted already; all the work I’ve done is gone though. Along with the program I was using.”

Tony numbly moved over to the computer in question and started typing in code before he abruptly stopped and reached down and pulled the power cord from its outlet.

“Its been hacked, our beloved voice hacker seems to be monitoring all of our computer usage.”

“Then why didn’t they stop me from skyping Happy?” Darcy asked.

Tony shrugged, “Not a clue, maybe they weren’t fast enough?”

Wanda shook her head despairingly, “What did you find out Natasha?”

The red head glanced at Tony before answering, “I found that some of the recordings are not all from the same person. The speech patterns are different but I can’t be certain without cleaning up the audio.”

“So,” Rhody began, “there could be more than one person behind this?”

“But why?” Wanda asked, “Why go to all the trouble, taking control of the robots, cutting off the power, and planting a bomb to blow up half the city? What is the propose?”

Natasha turned to face Tony fully.

“I don’t know maybe they wanted revenge.”

The room was silent the veiled accusation hanging in the air.

“What are you trying to insinuate Romanoff?” Tony asked.

“I find it very convent that the night you decide to let loose with your animatronics, that they get hijacked. Not to mention you and Pepper are the only ones who know how to access the AI’s controls. Also it’s not too far of a reach for you to have the ability to pull this off, though how you got Pepper to agree to go along with your scheme is beyond me.”

Tony cocked his head at his accuser, “Well with logic like that you could easily think Thor set this all up.”

 

She’s not too far off some of the things you’ve pulled off in the past Tony.” Rhody stated while pulling his ‘I’m not putting up with anymore of your antics’ face.

“You think I did this.” Tony’s voice held no inflection.

“You think that I’d endanger all of my friends and the people I care about, all over a stupid video game?” He shouted now becoming irate with his companions, “I swear on captain America’s patriotic bootie that I didn’t set this up. Why would I? I’m only endangering the people I care about most if I were. All I did was build the animatronics’ I even gave them the equivalent of a closed circuit so they couldn’t be hacked into. They have no ability to think for themselves. I did everything right this time and it still blew up in my face, no one wants to get this guy as much as me!”

A loud banging came from the emergency stairs door. Tony pulled out his suit bracelet and activated it, fully encased in his armor he approached the door.

“STARK, RHODS, ROMANOFF!” Steve yelled through the door, “Open up, it’s Sam, Thor, and me.”

Tony unlocked the door and let the three avengers into the lab.

“Whoa what happened to Thor?” Darcy asked.

“I mistook him for Chica, and hit him with my shield.”

Tony snorted as he deactivated his armor.

“So, how’s the tracking coming?” Sam asked.

. . . . . . . . 

Maria Hill was stomping through the hallway towards the room that she knew that was serving as the base of operations, her skirt swaying with her every step. She didn’t know what she was going to say when she got there but she knew she was going to knock some sense into them.

She entered the room and was greeted with beeping and keyboard clicking from the various monitors from around the room. Looking around Maria spotted Pepper, “Where is he?” she demanded as she approached the blond woman.

“Maria you need to calm down,” Pepper said, “he’s off trying to figure out who planted the bomb.”

Maria blinked, “What?”

“We didn’t plant the bomb.” A young woman with short brown hair with a laptop piped up, “we only learned of its existence after you mentioned it.”

“Then who-” Maria cut herself off. On the monitor closest to her she saw Dr. Fosters’ lab where she, Bruce and the bomb were, with an animatronic sneaking into the room.

If Bruce Hulked out and caused the bomb to go off he’d never forgive himself. Maria took off running; they were only a few floors away from the lab in question, she just hoped she could make it in time.

. . . . . . .

Steve leaned back in his chair and held up a hand,

“Hold on a minute, you think Tony did this, all over a stupid computer game? You’re slipping Nat.”

Natasha glared at Steve, “He’s been petty over lesser things before.”

“Seriously, Romanoff? We’ve probably got a live bomb in the building, rouge animatronics trying to capture us and you think that Tony is behind it all. I think there’s a better chance of Hydra being behind this than Tony; and I don’t think that Hydra is doing this.

“Now Sam and I are going to go get Bruce and Jane to bring them down here so we can try and forge a new plan; with any luck Maria and Pietro will be with them.  While we’re gone I want Darcy to try and contact Happy again ask him when the police are arriving.”

Steve looked at each person before he continued, “Everyone please try and work together we are the Avengers after all.”

With that Steve marched out of the lab with Sam following him.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is connected here. I hope you enjoyed it!


	9. RIP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint is concussed. Steve can't understand why people keep leaving their assigned areas. Bruce and Jane make a few surprise discovery.Two deaths of beloved charterers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly more inaccurate technology references.

Bruce was holding his phone flashlight for Jane as she worked on the wires for the anti-signal jammer. His mind stated to wander mulling over the events so far. He looked over at the box; it was wrapped in stripped paper, the top separate from the bottom, a hand crank on the side timer display just above it with a big red bow on the top. The box definitely had something inside it, something heavy. But why toy with them instead of killing them outright?

‘Maybe’, he thought, ‘he gets some kind of sick pleasure from it.’ But his gut told him that couldn’t be all of it, no there was something more to this; that or the voice was Thor’s brother Loki playing a trick just to screw with them. But maybe they could disarm the bomb; after all, Bruce having spent time in war ton counties had disabled a few land mines.

“Jane, do you think that disarming a bomb is any harder than a landmine?”

Jane’s head whipped up, “Do I what?”

“I was thinking that we could try and disarm the bomb-”

Jane cut him off, “Have you lost your mind? You could blow us all up and half of New York!”

“I’ve disarmed landmines before.” Bruce defended.

“That’s all well and good but until we can get a hold of a professional- Bruce don’t!” She cried as Bruce opened the box; inside were the mechanics of a bomb the trigger and wires for the crank and timer; but there didn’t seem to be any explosives within the box.

“Jane come look at this.” Bruce breathed trying to find any trace of an explosive in the box.

“All I see are the mechanics for a bomb.”

“Yeah, but that’s it, there are no explosives in this box that I can see, so even if the timer runs out it won’t do anything.”

Jane didn’t respond for a minute: “So this is all a huge hoax?”

Bruce didn’t answer that as he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if they were being watched.

“Jane, we need to go there’s something dangerous in here.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know but we need to get out of here. Do you know of another exit?”

“Yes, there’s another emergency exit on the south side of the lab.” Jane whispered.

Bruce nodded, “let’s start moving that way.”

Jane started moving towards the other exit; Bruce grabbed the box and followed her.

. . . . . . .

Steve and Sam entered the common room; it was empty.

“Aw really, why can’t people just stay put, this isn’t a murder mystery weekend.” Steve groaned.

“So now the question is what happened to Maria and Pietro; not to mention Bruce and Jane.”

Steve sighed, “We need to get back to the lab and come up with a new plan of action quickly.”

“I could always looking for Bruce and Jane.”

Steve shook his head, “No we haven’t gotten anywhere by splitting up we need to put our heads together and figure out where to go from here.”

As they turned to leave they saw an animatronic standing in the doorway, blocking their exit.  
Steve had left his shield down in Tony’s lab and to his knowledge Sam didn’t have any weapons on him. To Steve’s right was the bar, and behind the bar was a fire extinguisher.

“Sam, can you keep ‘it’ busy for a minute?”

Sam nodded and Steve vaulted over the bar counter, doing so caused the animatronic to charge at them.

. . . . .

Clint and Pietro were currently tying some climbing rope to a tandem harness which was strapped around both of them. Clint was rechecking the harness now to be sure it wouldn’t come loose at all during their assent.

They had decided that the best way to get off Clint’s floor would be to climb on the outside of the tower up to the balcony of the common room floor. Clint would shoot an arrow into a secure spot on the tower and then Pietro would do the climbing, with Clint on his back as his concussion was not helping his balance.

“I hope we don’t startle the ‘big man’.” Pietro commented as Clint did his final checks on the harness.

“Bruce has seen weirder things than Waldo and a circus freak climbing the side of Stark tower. You ready?” He asked having finished checking the harness.

Pietro nodded, they then proceeded to the window so Clint could shoot the arrow. It took a few attempts for Clint to get a secure hooking because 1. Tony’s tower was mostly comprised of windows and metal on the outside, 2. The bow Clint was using had only been used for decoration and he hadn’t trained with it in years, and 3. His concussion was causing his aim to be slightly off.

“What’s wrong old man, do you finally need glasses?” Pietro ribbed the archer.

“Do you want to fall to your death or not? Let me move so you can take us up, nice and easy though my head is killing me as it is and I don’t need you to add to it.”

Once outside on the window ledge, Pietro braced them for their assent and started climbing. They were almost there when Clint whispered, “Pietro move quickly, we don’t want to be spotted!”

“But your head-”

“Dr. Cho can fix it, Go!”

Pietro didn’t argue further and an as fast as he dared jumping over the edge of the balcony when he reached it and stopping abruptly just outside the doors.

“Good job now,” Clint paused as he saw Sam engaging the Springtrap animatronic, “Pietro go help Falcon!” he shouted.

Pietro ran and moved his fellow avenger out of the way as the animatronic took a swing at him, with Springtrap distracted Steve made his move; he fired the chemical compound from the fire extinguisher and froze the joints of the animatronic.

“Wow”, Pietro said in bemused aw.

“Pietro, can we get the harness off before you take off again? I feel like I’m going to puke.”

“Clint, are you all right?” Asked Sam.

“With the exception of a concussion, I’m okay.” The archer replied as he and Pietro undid the harness straps.

“Clint, do you know where Pepper is?” Steve asked.

Clint started to shake his head but thought better of it, “No I haven’t seen Pepper. But I might know who’s behind this.”

“Really who?” Sam and Steve asked in unison.

Clint took a deep breath, “Lets regroup and I’ll tell everyone at once.”

. . . . .

Maria reached the lab out of breath weapon raised, “Bruce, Dr. Foster?” she called out as she entered the lab. Receiving no reply she cautiously crept around the room to clear it.

She had nearly finished when she spotted it, Freddy, crouched in a corner.

“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” she muttered as Freddy stood up and proceeded towards her. Before he could get close though, Maria had fired her clip into him and killed his data core which caused him to stop and fall over with a loud cash.

. . . . .

Bruce and Jane having made a hasty escape were now a bit turned around. Somewhere between Jane’s lab and a few floors ago, they had gotten lost on a badly marked stairwell.

“Which R&D floor do you recon we’re on?” Bruce asked.

“I’m not sure.” Jane answered before she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head to get a better view of what had caught her attention; it was a computer monitor.

“Bruce, isn’t the power suppose to be out?”

“Well yeah.” He answered sounding slightly annoyed, “Why?”

“There’s a computer on over there,” She gestured towards the monitor. 

Bruce moved close to the computer to investigate it, “that’s odd.” He took a closer look at what was on the screen, “It’s the new design for Tony’s energy generator.”

Jane felt uneasy; she tore her gaze away from Bruce and looked around and she swore that she saw a shadow move.

“Bruce I think we need to get going, I don’t like this and Tony can deal with this later can’t he?”

Bruce looked up at her before answering, “Alright lets go then.”

The duo left much to the shadow’s relief as it went back to downloading the file onto a flash drive.

. . . . . . .

Ten minutes later Bruce decided to check and see what floor they were on.

“Do you want to wait here while I check?” He asked Jane.

“No way, I’m coming with you.” Jane insisted, pushing past Bruce opening the door, Bruce followed mildly amused.

“I don’t think we are on the R&D floors any more Bruce.” She stated.

Bruce looked around, “We’re on Tony’s floor, and we completely missed his lab.”

“But we could get over to the other set of stairs and go back down those right?” Jane asked.

Bruce nodded before he remembered that she couldn’t see him so he just answered, “yeah.”

They started walking down Tony’s hall way when Bruce realized that there appeared to be a light at the end of the hall way.

“Jane do you see that?”

“I was just about to ask you that.” She answered.

They approached cautiously until they reached the end of the hall, which opened up into the main room of the floor. The room was fully lit and had electronics strewn all over the room; from past experiences and visits Bruce knew that Pepper never allowed Tony to work in this room as she liked to have it ‘stay nice’. There was also a gaggle of people in the room.

“Bruce look there’s Pepper, and Maria, what in the world is going on?”

Before Bruce could even frame an opinion, a young woman with blond hair looked up from a computer strait at the pair.

“Well,” she said loudly, “This is awkward.”

The room went silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Marry Poppins with a gun. You're welcome. 
> 
> Thank you for all the kind comments and the kudo's It makes my day to see them. :)


	10. You didn't see that coming?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint reveals who is behind the tower takeover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the next chapter at long last! This one gave me a lot of trouble.  
> Please enjoy!

Darcy dutifully opened the Skype chat with Happy and waited for his face to appear on the screen.

“HI Darcy.” Happy said a bit too cheerfully.

“Hi Hap do you have an ETA for the authorities?”

Happy fiddled with a now empty plate that sat just in view of the web camera.

“I couldn’t get through on my phone so I-“

Happy was interrupted by Darcy, “Happy look out!”

Happy looked confused before turning his head just enough to see the Bonnie animatronic, looking a little worse for wear, he screamed as Bonnie started to grab for him. The screams coming from the laptop’s speakers attracted the other Avengers who hurried over to see what was going on.  Happy was no match for the larger Bonnie, who managed to subdue him and pull him out of the security office leaving the avengers staring at the now empty room. After some time passed Rhody put his hand on Darcy’s shoulder.

“Close the chat box Darcy.”

“We have to go after him!” Tony shouted in a panic.

“And do what Tony? Suppose there are more of them? We need to stay here and continue to search for the root of the problem, that being the person behind all this.” Rhody told the inventor sternly.

Tony slowly sank to the floor holding his head in his hands; “This is my fault.”

When no one said anything to the contrary he went on,

“All because I couldn’t let go of the fact that Captain Perfect was able to pull one over on me. Those that I hold dearest, Pepper, Happy, Jarvis, and even Barton have been taken and had who knows what done to them. Not that Bird-Brain and I were necessarily close or anything but we did have our moments.”

“Aw Tony, that’s nice of you to say,” Called a voice from the other side of the lab, causing everyone to look over towards the emergency doors, to see Clint standing with Steve, Sam, and Pietro.

Tony blinked, “How?”

Clint gestured to Pietro, “Boy wonder here ran up the side of your tower with a repelling rope holding onto me and here we are.”

Clint tried to walk further into the lab but had to be caught by Sam before he fell over. Pietro raced to grab the archer a chair without wheels for him to sit in. Clint gratefully sat down and scanned the room.

“Looks like you have been busy.” He nodded towards the Foxy animatronic.

“Yeah, well Dumb-E took out that one, Clint where were you being held? We were really concerned.” Rhody questioned the archer.

“Oh that’s nice of you, but really you shouldn’t have, I was on my own floor.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow, “Your floor?”

Clint nodded and winced this time, “Yes, um I should probably mention that I’ve got a concussion. I had some ice earlier but I think I could use some more now.”

“There’s ice in the freezer, if it hasn’t already melted.” Tony said as Natasha stood up to retrieve the ice; she was well versed in taking care of Clint while he was suffering with a concussion.

“M’k, thanks Tash,” Clint said taking the drippy ice pack from his partner, “Why don’t ya’ll tell me what happened after Balloon Baboon took me on a ride through the vents?”

The rest of the team began relating the events since Clint’s kidnapping but it took twice as long as it should have as Clint kept interrupting, as he usually did in a concussed state.  Steve finally looked over at Natasha exasperated as Clint made Pietro repeat what he remembered before he was knocked out for the third time. Natasha shrugged as if to say, ‘there’s nothing I can do’.

“Barton,” Steve spoke up, “I think we’ve got you pretty much caught up. I think you should tell us what happened to you.”

“Oh not too much, I think, I mean Balloon Boy pulled me through the vents I smacked my head pretty good at one point I think and some things are a bit patchy after that; I know someone shined a light in my eyes for sure, and there is definitely more than one person running these shenanigans . But I do know who’s behind this whole thing.”

That got everyone’s attention, with all eyes on Clint as he shifted the ice pack. After a minute passed without Clint going on Wanda spoke up.

“Well are you going to tell us?”

“Oh yeah; It’s Maria she’s behind the whole thing.”

Silence fell over the room again as the group absorbed the information that was just dropped on them.

“Clint,” Natasha entreated, “Are you sure that Maria is behind this?”

“Oh yeah, she’s clever enough to do it, she even had me fooled into thinking that someone else was behind it. Very convincing but it was when Pietro and I were escaping that I learned the truth. I looked through one of the windows and I saw Maria in the middle of what looked like a command center of computers and monitors. Not to mention that Pepper was there too.”

Tony’s head perked up, “Pepper was there? Is she ok?”

Clint shrugged, “I couldn’t see that well but she looked fine.”

“But Maria couldn’t have been the mastermind,” Rhody said, “She’s been with us from the beginning. Maybe she found the command area and Pepper and that’s what you were seeing.”

Clint shook his head, “It’s the only conclusion I can come up with that makes sense to me; it’s that or there’s a ghost behind this whole thing.”

Natasha gave Clint a hard look, “Clint can you explain what you mean by that.”

“Oh I’ll save him the trouble Agent Romanoff.” Said a semi familiar male voice from the door way.

Everyone turned and in the emergency doorway stood an old friend that they’d all long thought dead, surrounded by a small group of people in uniforms. At that moment Thor regained consciousness and exclaimed with gusto,

“Son of Coul! You are alive!” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well look who finally decided to show up. :D 
> 
> I'm thinking that there are at lest two more chapters to this, three at the most. 
> 
> And just to give you a bit of world building as I don't think I'll be addressing it directly in the story, everyone pre the Agents of Shield episode 'Parting shot' is with Coulson. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	11. Set up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which plot points converge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last my muse for this story has returned! I had to send it off to Tahiti for a spell in order to get this chapter written. (It took around four drafts before I was satisfied with its content.) I hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> FYI: Coulson's team is split up into: May, Skye/Daisy, Jemma, Fitz, Maria in the penthouse with Pepper. While Coulson has Hunter, Lincoln, and Mack helping him search for the bomb.

3:30 AM

 “SON OF COUL!” Thor bellowed, “What is this sorcery that has brought you back to us? And why did you not come back sooner?”

“It’s not sorcery Thor, it’s a trick, this isn’t Phil Coulson this is an imposter with imposter hench men!” Clint said gesturing towards the S.H.I.E.L.D agents that were standing behind Coulson.

Coulson looked over at Clint, “Clint I can assure you that I am 100% real and not an imposter; I have no idea what Fury told you and Natasha seeing as you were both level 8 before S.H.I.E.L.D fell,” Coulson shot a side glance towards Steve as he said this, “What I do know is that I’m here, I’m alive and we don’t have time for long winded explanations right now.

“It’s come to our attention that Dr.’s Foster and Banner have left their position and have taken the bomb with them and subsequently disappeared. We have been looking for them on every floor and have yet to locate them.”

“Sir,” a young looking man with a British accent interrupted, “Agent Jonson says that Dr.’s Banner and Foster are in the penthouse and they have the bomb with them.”

Coulson’s face took on its blandest expression, “Thank you Agent Hunter. Now as for the rest of you, you can either accompany us up to the penthouse and start a group effort to stop whoever or whatever is loose in Stark tower, or you can stay down here. The choice is yours.”

The moment of silence that came after was deafening but not as deafening as the call to action from every member of the team in the lab.

. . . . 

A flash light shone as its wielder walked through the rows of desks; he was a tall man and built like a small tank, he finally found what he was looking for when he reached the row of desks nearest to the emergency exit stairs. The ‘Tank man’ made his way towards the computer monitor that his partner was working with.

“How much longer do you need? I want to get out of here as soon as possible those things are giving me the hebie jeebies.”

“I’m almost done downloading the last few files for this set and then we can move on out and collect our checks.” His partner in crime said as she continued to type in algorithms to distract the annoying AI that Stark had in all of his security features as the files for Starks Clean Energy Program were being downloaded onto a flash drive.

“I had a close call a few minutes ago, two of those scientists came snooping around in here and almost discovered me.”

‘Tank man’ closed his eyes briefly, “At least it wasn’t that bunny thing again. I think I got though. Only Stark would make killer robots to patrol his tower, and only you would think to play into the whole animatronics run amuck line. We don’t even know who the other guy is!”

“Keep your shirt on, I just need twenty minutes and we can sneak out and give the drive over to the boss. Now shut up and let me work!”

Turning away from his partner to watch the exits ‘Tank man’ tapped his foot impatiently eyes flitting to one exit and then the other. His partner had assured him that she only needed five more minutes when the stair well door closest to them opened and a burly man pressing a cloth to his face came through.

“Who are you and what are you doing here, this is a restricted floor!”

The man’s protests were followed by the sound of heavy foot falls in the stair well along with a loud clang and a crash.

“Cheryl it’s time to go.” ‘Tank man’ said as he lunged for the man in the door way.

. . . . . .

Hill’s head snapped up the minute Bobbie finished speaking to see Doctor’s Foster and Banner standing at the edge of the penthouse living room.

“Bruce, Jane,” Pepper surprisingly spoke first, “We’ve been looking for you for the last two hours!”

The scientists blinked, “you’ve been looking for us?” Bruce said cautiously as he took in his surroundings, as if checking for danger.

“Who may I ask are these people?” Jane asked with an edge in her voice.

Maria spoke up before anyone else, “These are loyal shield agents Dr. Foster. They’ve been helping to try and corral this fiasco of a prank gone wrong.” Maria paused and nodded to the box in Bruce’s hands, “That is our primary concern at the moment.” Maria turned to a young man with messy brown hair, “Fitz can you disarm the bomb?”

“I can have it done quickly Ms Hill.” The Scotsmen replied.

Maria approached Bruce, “Let me give this to Fitz and then we can bring you both up to speed on what’s happening.” Maria moved to take the box but Bruce moved it out of her reach. “You were in on this? Tony planned all of this and you helped him pull it off.” He asked in disbelief.

“I did know, but not in the way you’re insinuating.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed at this, “How is it not like what he’s insinuating? You just admitted to knowing about this whole plot of Tony’s.”

“Jane, Bruce please let’s disarm the bomb before we have this discussion.” Pepper pleaded from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, I mean I’m sure none of us wants to go boom in the next few minutes.” Said a young woman standing with her hands hovering over a key board looking like a coiled spring ready to unwind if necessary as an Asian woman moved around the set up to try and help Maria get the puppet box.

“Pepper told us about the plan that Tony had and wanted to teach him a lesson, but the only way it would get through that thick skull of his would be if we hatched an elaborate scheme, but it’s gone wildly out of control. Now will you please give me the box?” Maria said in a rush.

Bruce openly appeared angry without a shade of green visible. “You planned a scheme to teach Tony a lesson, but didn’t think that is might be a good idea to inform the most dangerous person in the tower, the person who gets angry when they get overly stressed, in on this little scheme of yours?”

Maria blinked, took a deep steadying breath before replying, “No we didn’t. I apologized for the lack of judgment Bruce. But let me have the bomb.”

Bruce didn’t speak he held Maria’s gaze deliberately as he dropped the puppet box to the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Seriously though I'm shooting to get this story done by the end of the month as I don't want to leave it unfinished for too much longer. I've already started on the next chapter and have the ending partially written. Thanks for sticking with this story and for the encouraging comments!


	12. Let's roll out!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has to take the reins of this fun house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's back? Back again. Everyone! Well... except Happy. (Please ignore any weird formatting, I'm working with a new word processor and it appears to be formatting funny.)

It was if the world had slowed down to a crawl as Maria watch Bruce drop the box, her hands reaching out in an attempt to catch it, Agent May running to attempt to catch the box as well.But they both failed as the box hit the floor, scattering it’s contents. Maria stared in disbelief trying to figure out why they weren’t fifty feet in the air by now. Her thoughts were broken into by Coulson’s asset turned agent, though the young woman in Maria’s opinion was only making use of the first three letters of the former title. “I really don’t think that’s how a bomb is suppose to work.”

“Thank you Agent Johnson.” May said curtly, never removing her gaze from the two scientists in front of her.

Maria locked eyes with Bruce, trying in vain to form words, never in her entire carrier had she been so speechless.

“It’s a fake, Dr. Foster and I discovered this about an hour ago when we were down in her lab trying to reverse the jamming signal to call for help.” Bruce’s voice was void of all inflection, his eyes were clear and there was not a shade of green to his complexion, he was irate.

“Bruce Banner!” Pepper shouted, “That was the most irresponsible thing I have ever seen you do, and that is including helping to build Ultron. You didn’t have to scare several years off of our lives in order to tell us that the bomb was a fake!”

“Pepper!”

All heads turned in time to see an unkempt Sherlock Holmes run through the room to where Pepper stood and embrace her in a passionate hug. “I’m so glad you’re OK, not glad that you sought to undermine me, but still glad you’re OK.” 

“Tony, now is not the time, I was not finished with Bruce.”

“Lady Jane! You are all right, I was so distraught over your unknown location. I had feared that the angry animal robots had taken you as well, but I see now that I need not have feared as this is all just a jest of the Son of Coul’s.”

“Its good to see you too, Thor.” Jane said as she embraced the enthusiastic Asgaurdian.

Maria turned to see that the remaining avengers were standing in the doorway along side Coulson and his search party.

“As touching as these reunions are,” Coulson broke in, “Mr. Stark if you could get Jarvis up and running again it would be greatly appreciated, maybe then we can look into who the other person running around the tower is.”

Looks of confusion were turned Coulson’s way, “What do you mean by other person?” Bruce asked evenly.

“There is another person in the tower, they planted the bomb and managed to hijack the audio system temporarily to masquerade as me, though you didn’t know it was me at the time.”  


“We also need to find Happy. The Bonnie animatronic got him.” Darcy pipped up.

“Thank you, Miss Lewis you are right.”

Maria looked over at Tony to see him appearing to give some thought to the situation, “Of course,” he said snapping his fingers, “Why didn’t I think of it before, there’s a master switch for Jarvis and the main power grids in my bedroom, for just this sort of situation. I must have been so freaked out about Pepper being ‘kidnapped’”, he used air quotes to illustrate his point, “that I forgot about it.”

“You mean there was a way to fix about half of this problem right under our noses.” May deadpanned.

“I’ll get on it now. Sit tight.” Tony said as he skittered off toward the bedroom.

“Any idea who this other person is?” Asked Sam after a few seconds.

“Sadly no, we think that he’s in one of the computer labs but that’s as far as we got before we lost contact with Happy, and Barton and Speedy Gonzalez here took off.”

Jane looked thoughtful for a moment before she snapped her fingers, “That must have been why one of the computers was on in that one lab Bruce, we walked in on the guy and he hid so that we wouldn’t catch him.”

Conveniently the power hummed back to life and the backup generators shut down having served their purpose. Tony came rushing back in, “Jarvis status update!”

“It would appear that there are two unknown adversaries on floor 56a and that Mr. Hogan is with them, Sir; and may I add that the animatronics are in pursuit of them and appear to be trying to heard them into the main corridor on floor 56a.”

A moment of silence met with Jarvis’s statement before chaos broke loose, each person having their own idea on how the situation should be handled. But one person had, had enough and commandeered a chair before blowing the loudest whistle that she could humanly make.“All right you meatballs listen up!” Darcy shouted, “It seems that we can kill two birds with one stone here, possibly three if we can get a move on.

p>“Steve we need to take down the animatronics that are herding the suspects into the corridor I trust that you can get them taken care of since you apparently have an aptitude for taking down large powerful beings with an over sized metal frizbee.

“Agent Ipod thief,” she now turned to Coulson, “we need to be able to arrest the suspects as it looks like they are trying to steal secret Stark Industries files, because why else would you break into a computer lab in Avengers tower?” Coulson nodded and turned to Agents May and Johnson beckoning them to come forward to confer on their assignment.

“And last but not least Jarvis does Happy appear hurt in any way?” The AI took his time in answering, by the time he did Steve had assembled the rest of the group into a semi organized attack force of tired costumed heroes.

“My apologies Miss Lewis, the scanners in some parts of the tower are still coming back online, while Mr. Hogan does appear to have no serious external injuries, he is in a great deal of distress as he is being held hostage by two individuals.”

“Thank you Jarvis, now Avengers Roll out! I want to be in bed before the sun comes up.”

Maria gave a smile as the groups split off into their respective jobs, eyeing Bruce one last time before going to work with Coulson, she could tell that they both had a lot of work to do to fix this one; and not just with the animatronics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp here we go they're off, as am I to see about wrangling another chapter out. (I'm not going to try and project when this one will be ready, I seem to jinks myself every time that I do that.) Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoy!


	13. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy gets snicker doodles, and a cupcake is mentioned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All mistakes are my own, please ignore any weird formatting, I'm working with a word processor that doesn't like to work with AO3's system. Enjoy!

Getting past Stark’s AI and security had been the hardest challenge that faced the duo, finding out about the party from that ‘Avengers wrangler’ lady had been a stroke of luck. The puppet box had been a last minute thought by Cheryl, who had thought the thing would spook the team during their party. ‘Tank’ would have then gone on the P.A. system to tell them that there was a bomb hidden in a specific spot in the tower and that the box was programmed to turn it off. But that had been before Stark had gone all terminator on the tower and gotten the creepiest animatronics robots to guard the tower. They hadn’t signed up for this.

  


Cheryl was leading the way down a dark hallway towards what the floor layout showed as an exit, their hostage was between them hobbling along as ‘Tank’ brought up the rear. Behind them they could hear the lumbering steps of one of the animatronics tailing them as they tried to make their escape.

  


“I hate robots!” Cheryl hissed as they rounded the corner and into a small alcove with two elevators to their left. The moment of triumph was quickly extinguished when ‘Tank’ spotted a pair of glowing eyes at the end of the hallway opposite them. Cheryl swore,“Aren’t there any emergency stairs we can take?”

  


Consulting his mental map ‘Tank’ realized that they had passed them a few turns back, “we’ve already passed them, and there’s no way that thing will allow us past it in order to get to them.” The whirring of gears were getting closer with each wasted second. They looked around for a place to hide, but the alcove was bare except for the large potted plants that stood on either side of the elevator.

  


“Quick, get behind the plant maybe they won’t notice us if we’re lower than their line of sight.” Cheryl whispered darting over to the nearest plant, the large ceramic pot just barely covering half of her crouching body. ‘Tank’ strong armed Happy over to the other side of the same plant putting the man in front of himself like a shield as the potted plant concealed even less of his body than Cheryl.

  


One by one the remaining animatronics lumbered into the room the rabbit came from the opposite hallway, the chicken from the one they had just abandoned, and the laughing boy had come from who knows where, they gathered together in front of the trio. ‘Tank’ wasn’t breathing which surprisingly wasn’t affecting his thought process as he started running through all the scenario that could play out, when the lights came on, the humming of various machines starting back up flooded his ears taking a minute for him to adjust his senses, taking his focus off of the hostage.

  


Happy bolted for the elevator hitting the button with all his strength. ‘Tank’ was surprised, but not as surprised when the rabbit moved faster than he’d calculated and grabbed Cheryl in a firm grip that she couldn’t break. His focus once again being else where he had failed to notice the chicken moving at the same rate as the rabbit had. ‘Tank’ found himself hoisted above the animatronics head, and before he could process a way to diffuse the situation he was hurtled into the wall.

  


. . .  . . .

  


Happy was terrified, not only had he just been kidnapped and held hostage, but he had just watched two of the three animatronics hurl his former captors into walls. He started pressing the elevator button harder hoping that the rouge robots had forgotten all about him. Balloon boy was laughing manically when the elevator dinged and the doors opened.

The sequence of events that happened next where a blur, but Happy distinctly remembered a large Frisbee come flying out of the elevator hitting one of the advancing animatronics in the face, before a large man with an odd looking shot gun ran out and started chopping them up.

  


“Happy! Happy? Are you alright? Please be OK Pepper will kill me if you’re not OK!” Happy focused on the voice that was speaking to him, it sounded a bit metallic and far away, he turned his head to see Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit.

  


“I think you went too far this time boss.”

  


Tony chuffed, “Yeah, I think I did Hap. Come on let’s get you upstairs where everyone is waiting to see you. We’ve even got Snicker doodles.” The man bribed when it appeared that Happy wasn’t going to be moving. He nodded his head and shakily moved into the relative safety of the elevator. ‘I hope Dr. Simmons made the Snicker doodles again.’ he thought just before he passed out.

  


..

  


“How’s Mr. Hogan holding up?” Director Coulson asked when Tony reappeared.

  


“One of your wonder twins says that he’s ‘sustained a minor concussion and is in shock from having three cracked ribs, but he should make a full recovery’.”

  


Coulson smiled, “Dr. Simmons is very good with in the field first aid.”

  


Tony shrugged, “Yeah well is she any good with hearing problems, I think I might need a hearing aid after Pepper is done with me.”

  


Coulson shook his head and gestured to a heap next to one of the walls, it was sparking. “It looks like someone else has an interest in animatronics too, with the exception of using animals, these were made to look like humans. It’s reminiscent of some Life Model Decoys that we ran across a few months back.”

  


“Someone actually made an LMD? There was a reason why that project was scrapped, the main one being that the LMD’s started wanting to feel things for themselves, to be human.”

  


Coulson’s eyebrows raised a fraction, “Don’t look at me like that,” Tony groused, “My dad was one of the leads on the project, I even toyed around with the idea myself a time or two after the whole “Incident” happened and more villains started showing up. But I never got past the blue prints stage after reading the old reports of the LMD’s becoming violent when they couldn’t experience feelings for themselves.”

  


Coulson lowered his eyebrows, “Perhaps there’s hope for you yet Mr. Stark.”

  


. .

  


3:30 pm

Steve couldn’t sleep any longer, it was after noon and the only time he even slept past noon- baring his 70 year nap- had been when he was sick. He sleepily pulled himself out of bed and padded to his kitchenette only to find it bereft of breakfast food. ‘I’ll just go see if there’s anything in the common room kitchen.’

  


As the elevator made it’s way up Steve was joined by Dr. Foster, Thor, and Clint no one was in the mood to make small talk aside from the acknowledging grunt or nod.

  


The common room was still decorated from the previous evening with the exception of the animatronics parts that had littered the floor from where Steve and Sam had frozen it. Considering the moods of his elevator companions Steve was rather surprised to smell delicious food wafting about the common room entry way. In the kitchen an assembly line of sorts had been set up. Agent Johnson was cutting fruit under Agent May’s supervision, Agents Hunter and Morris were cooking Bacon and sausage respectively, while Fitzsimmons was busy making a large pan of scrambled eggs. And at the kitchen island was Coulson making pancakes in the shapes of the Avengers symbols; he was currently making Cap’s shield.

  


“Good morning! We’ve almost got breakfast ready for you, just go sit at the table with Dr. Banner and Maria and we’ll bring the feast to you.” Coulson said in a cheery manor that suggested he’d drunk one too many coffees already.

  


Steve and company started making their way to the table that was being set by Mac and Agent Campbell when Tony stumbled out of the elevator blindly making his way to the kitchen. As he passed Agent Johnson he muttered something about “No strawberries” before landing in front of the kitchens well used coffee machine, which had coffee ready for him to indulge in.

  


Once the rest of the team had gathered together breakfast was served, as Thor was working on his seventh helping of pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage Steve took a moment to observe the team and agents. He was looking for any signs of distress that he’d need to follow up on. Mostly they seemed to be fine though he knew his teammates had a habit of hiding their true emotions, the twins were sitting closer than normal, Tony was talking faster than anyone could keep up with- other than JARVIS-, Bruce and Maria seemed to be OK despite the unpleasantness they’d encountered in their relationship the previous evening as they held hands under the table. They’d all recover and perhaps be wiser for it.

  


Steve pulled out his phone to a text message from Darcy, who’d taken Happy to the hospital with Sam early that morning, saying that Happy was doing just fine and that he’d be contacting Tony to let him know the details of his newly needed medical leave.

  


Steve started thumbing through the days events on his phone not really paying attention when something caught his eye just as Clint asked a question that had slipped Steve’s own mind.

“Coulson, what happened to you? I mean Fury said you were dead.”

  


Coulson gave a sad smile, “Well Clint that’s a long story.”

  


Steve put his phone away, “I think we’ve got time to hear it.”

  


Coulson nodded and began the long story of project “Tahiti”, and what came after.

  


. . . .

1 Week later

  


“As you’ll see in the file I sent over to your resident lab geeks, the LMD’s that invaded the tower were equipped with software designed to copy files and store them, along with programs designed to distract JARVIS, though those would have only served to cause him to go into lock down if the power hadn’t been put into black out conditions. They were also built with mostly Hammer products, none of my own were used surprisingly, whoever made these obviously has no taste or class. The products used were things that you can purchase on the street so while the finger could be pointed at Hammer, we can’t say for sure that they had anything to do with the infiltration of Stark tower.”

  


Coulson nodded as he watched Tony gesture wildly on the screen in front of him.

  


“I’m sure that if there is anything else to find that my team will do their best to find it Mr. Stark.”

  


Tony looked like he was about to reply when Clint dropped out of the ceiling, “Tony! Steve found another FNAF game!”

  


Tony whipped around to look at the former S.H.I.E.L.D agent, “What!”  
  


“Yeah, he’s talking about it on the phone with Sam right now, he said it’s called ‘FNAF World’. We’ve got to call the code!”

  


Tony nodded seriously, “Sorry Agent, love to keep chatting, but we’ve got an emergency here. JARVIS call Code: Cupcake and end the call.”  
  


The screen went black after that, allowing Phil to let loose his laughter, which caused him to double over in hysteria. Agent May had been waiting outside the door heard his manic laughing and entered the room slowly, weapon drawn. “Phil, what’s going on?”

  


Between laughing fits he managed to tell her, “Cap found another FNAF game and the Avengers have a specialized code for it. They-they even classified it as an emergency.”

  


Melinda shook her head as she holstered her weapon and exited the office, “You’re hopeless Phil.”, which did nothing to ease the man’s laughing fit.

  


The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for joining me for this story! Special thanks to those of you who patently waited for me to put out chapters when I had long stretches of writers block, You guys rock! :D 
> 
> This is where this series ends. I will not be doing Steve reacting/playing 'Sister location' or any others that Scott puts out,(Though the LMD's kinda point to the books a bit.). I'm ready to move on from the idea, but maybe I will come back and post other games that the Avengers play if I get a good story idea. *BUT* if someone wants to take this idea and build on it by writing fanfiction for this series by all means proceed, just be sure to let me know so I can come enjoy it too! :) 
> 
> Thank you again! And please leave a comment (Or five I don't care) and let me know what you thought of the story, this chapter, or the series. I love comments. Thank you so much again!

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! Let me know what you think. Feel free to review I love comments. I'm open to constructive criticism.


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